Facebook Succumbs to AI, Logic Loses Out
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has delegated Facebook's content moderation to artificial intelligence. Yet occasionally, this AI makes choices that seem comically misguided. While users can challenge these decisions, the ultimate arbiter remains... that very same all-mighty AI.
In mid-October, the Facebook community was abuzz with a story from Reuven M. Lerner, which he shared on his personal blog. Lerner is a seasoned figure in the IT world. He pioneered web development during the early days of the Internet. Nearly three decades ago, he began instructing in programming languages, and he continues to do so. Students from the US, China, Israel, and throughout Europe attend Lerner's courses on Python and Pandas (a Python library designed for data analysis and manipulation). He's also engaged in face-to-face training sessions for Apple and Cisco staff. Lerner authors educational materials and maintains an online educational venture, offering email newsletters, a specialized blog, video tutorials, and more. Reuven M. Lerner is no obscure figure; his professional accomplishments are easily searchable online.
Reuven M. Lerner teaches coding to students worldwide. Source: lerner.co.il
Lerner's educational projects inevitably needed marketing. A couple of years back, he sponsored a modest advertising campaign on Facebook, which unfortunately didn't bear notable results. So, Reuven thought of revisiting the idea. However, upon attempting to access his ad account, he was stunned to find a permanent ban slapped on him by Zuckerberg's team for an alleged violation of advertising guidelines. The grounds for this ban were mystifying to him. Not one to back down, Lerner clicked the "Appeal Decision" option. Meta's swift reply was disheartening: they insisted a violation had occurred, and the ban was irrevocable.
Facebook Bans the Python Tutor for 'Snake Trading.' Source: lerner.co.il
Surprised and seeking clarity, Lerner began reaching out to acquaintances on Facebook and LinkedIn. He soon discovered a friend who had encountered a similar ban while promoting Python courses. It turned out that Facebook's AI-based content moderation system mistakenly identified their Python programming promotions as advertisements for the sale of exotic reptiles, a type of content strictly prohibited on the platform. Ironically, the "Python" name is a nod to the comedy group Monty Python, and "Pandas" is an abbreviation for "Python data analysis." Although it's not uncommon for Python promotions to feature snake imagery and Pandas information to be highlighted with bamboo or cute bear pictures, the AI deemed this evidence enough to justify its conclusions. After a cursory investigation, Lerner's case was promptly archived. Making matters worse, Lerner's attempts to use his personal contacts at Facebook to rectify the situation hit a snag: since more than 180 days had passed since the ban, all details related to his account and actions were irretrievably deleted.
The bottom line seems to be that Meta’s AI made a mistake, a big one. (You can be sure that I’ll be using this example when I teach courses on machine learning.) The fact that both the original judgment and the appeal were handed by AI is pretty ridiculous,Lerner concludes.
